● Inset: Mr Ansah in an interview with journalist

The occupants of illegal structures along the rail line at European Town, Sekondi, in the Western Region, have pleaded with city authorities to “temper justice with mercy” and give them time to prepare and leave the pleace.

Last week, Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA), in   media notice announced  it  would  demolish  the illegal structures dotted along the rail line, near the train station, but, there was  ‘no show.’

A source explained to The Spectator  that, in accordance with the Assembly’s   Bye laws, they should have given the occupants two weeks before commencing the exercise, adding” we’ll  be back next week.”

The worried occupants, however, complained about the timing and appealed to the authorities to sympathise with them and extend the period for the exercise.

“We are ready to leave but the timing is  too short, we know we need development,  however,  they should give us up to Christmas or  January, by which time we would have got a place to relocate. That’s our plea,” Johannes Ansah, an opinion leader told The Spectator.

He said,  a chief at the Sekondi Palace was trying to help them find a place to relocate and so needed  more time to put their belongings in order before leaving the area.

STMA, Mr Ansah said,  should bear with  the occupants who, he noted, were  ‘going through hell especially in this economic recession.”

“It’s not easy at all to cope with this unfortunate situation we find ourselves. People are trying to make ends meet and then you come and say clear-off like that, we are self-employed and decent people and it’s not easy to rent a house,”  he added.

Mr Ansah claimed that STMA collected temporary business operating permit from businesses in the area and also they paid bills to utility companies.

The opinion leader said that prior to the notice for demolition,  ECG had removed about 500 meters from the area thereby grounding the fridges used by fishermen and fishmongers to store fish for sale.

European Town, he argued, hosted Regional Coordinating Council (RCC), home of Paa Grant,  Western Naval  Command, and attracted fishermen  from Kpone, Accra and Winneba areas including barbers, hair dressers, and, therefore,  “was a  huge commercial  hub of Sekondi.”

The fishermen, for example, he complained, had no money to rent rooms in Sekondi for their work, so they needed the temporary structures to lay their heads.

He spoke about the smoking of Indian hemp and other criminal activities such as prostitution, and said the security agencies should deal with such matters.

One woman also accused the indigenes of encouraging the illicit trade in the area.

“The Ashawoo is done by Ghanaians: the foreigners couldn’t have been here without involvement of Ghanaians. We have lived here for almost 30 years and some of us have contracted loans for fishing  business, how do we pay the monies back?” distraught woman, Essaba complained.

She told The Spectator she paid  GHc600 a year to rent a structure.

FROM CLEMENT ADZEI BOYE, SEKONDI